Burninating Negan
by Trogdor19
Summary: Carol finds out Negan enslaved Daryl. And then Negan is very, very sorry. *Spoilers up to Episode 7x04
1. Ch 1 The Spark

_Author's Note: Rated M for graphic violence against Negan. Written for the Fix It Challenge on Nine Lives Archive, which you should all check out bc it has the best Caryl fics.  
_

 _Set roughly sometime after 7x04. Daryl is Negan's hostage, nothing else terrible has happened yet._

 _"Burninate" is a verb particularly associated with my screen name. If you'd like to see the background on that, go to YouTube and search "Trogdor Strongbad" but fair warning, the answer is...weird.  
_

* * *

 **Chapter 1: The Spark**

The rumble of trucks from the road spiked Carol's pulse, and all the leaves on the trees around her snapped into brighter focus. This was it. This would either save Daryl, or it would cost her everything she had left.

She sprinted out into the road, careful not to get too far ahead of the walkers following her. "Help!" she shrieked, running up the dashed yellow line with her arms waving. Negan might shoot her on sight, but Michonne said she thought he wasn't as cruel as he was ego-driven. And a man with a large ego could never resist a damsel in distress.

One of the walkers caught her shirt and she struggled with it, keeping its head just away from her while trying to make her arms look shaking and weak. It wasn't hard to garner enough strength with her heartbeat thundering in her ears and her peripheral vision telling her there were three trucks full of men. She had a single pistol on her hip, and if she didn't miss even once, she had enough bullets for maybe half of them.

The trucks stopped and a tall, slick-haired man got out. "Well, well, well. What do we have here? Go on, Joey. Help the lady out, what's wrong with you?"

She shoved the walker away from her as she realized what was about to happen. Most people she'd ever met thought they were a better shot than they were. The walker was nearly a full arm's length away from her, rotting skin drooping from one eye socket, when its head exploded.

She snapped her mouth closed out of long habit—to avoid the spray—and wiped her lips with her sleeve after the walker fell.

A man with a leather jacket and a wire-wrapped bat swaggered over. With a Babe Ruth-worthy windup, he took out the second walker. He propped the now-dripping bat over his shoulder and grinned at her, droplets of blood shining in his salt and pepper beard. "Well, hello."

"Th-than—" The words stuck on her tongue and she switched tactics quickly. "Oh my god, I was so frightened! I don't know what I would have done if you wouldn't have come along."

It was him. With Michonne's descriptions and that bat, it couldn't be anyone but Negan. Anger twisted, black and writhing in the pit of her stomach.

"Anything for a lady," he drawled, then his gaze focused as he got a clear look at her face. "And you are…quite a lady, aren't you?"

Carol wiped the spray of blood from her cheek with a hand that was suddenly shaking from more than feigned shock. The memory of Axel's head exploding played all too clearly in her memory, and she blinked, reaching for the canteen on her belt. "So thirsty. Sorry. Was running—" she gasped out, fumbling at the lid with ineffectual hands.

"Let me get that for you, darlin'." He propped the wire-wrapped bat against his leg and took the canteen. The three armed goons who'd spanned out behind him looked bored. He unscrewed the lid and she reached for it quickly.

"Oh, aren't you sweet—oops!" Her quavering hand jogged the canteen, clear fluid splashing up onto his jacket and all down his front. The sharp fumes hit their noses at the same moment.

His eyes widened, went hard. She flicked the lighter she'd been hiding in her other sleeve and took a step back as he caught on fire. The canteen fell, spilling more gasoline around his shoes, pooling the liquid like a silvery skating rink for dancing orange flames.

Carol drew her gun and shot the three men behind him, then dove for the front of the first truck and took cover. Men boiled out of the next truck, taking cover on the far side and starting to shoot in her direction. She almost smiled.

A rifle cracked from the shelter of the forest. Once. Twice. She counted five before it fell silent, though Negan's screams nearly drowned out everything, along with the thumps of his hands as he tried to beat out the flames.

Truck two, down. She could hear low, scared murmurs from the first truck, behind her. She was sheltered by the engine block, and it sat up high enough she couldn't see into the cab without standing. Instead she spun around the edge, keeping low and then popping up to the window. In the extra second she took to check for Daryl, one of them got their gun up.

Her bullet punched through glass just before his. It took off the chin of the man nearest her, and grazed the top of the head of the guy next to him. She turned and cleared the backseat. Two bullets, one man. Her last two finished off the men in the front seat. She plastered her back to the truck and dropped one clip, slammed in another one.

She'd rather have come in with one of the automatic rifles she borrowed from the Kingdom, but it was harder to play the helpless woman with an M-16 slung over her shoulder.

She could still do it, but it was harder.

The graceful, metallic swish of Michonne's katana came from the back of the convoy, but Rosita's rifle didn't speak from the trees again. She desperately wanted to check the backs of the trucks for Daryl, but if she did, Negan would die too quickly. He'd been taking Daryl along as an example on some of his town visits, which meant they couldn't just swiss cheese the convoy with bullets. But then, it also meant there was a chance they'd get Daryl here and not have to invade the main compound with just the three of them.

She strode around the front of the trucks, keeping a sharp eye out for stragglers. She picked up the fallen bat. Lucille, Michonne had called it. It felt heavier than it should in her hand. With the barbed wire, maybe, or the weight of the knowledge that if Daryl had been in any of those trucks, he'd already be out and fighting alongside them. Tying his hands barely slowed him down these days, it had happened so many times.

Negan gave an agonized groan as she rounded the truck and caught sight of his red, blistered face. His beard and hair had singed away to little black smoldering dots, but his leather jacket had saved him from the worst of the flames, and his jeans were barely scorched.

Carol sighed. "Stop, drop, and roll. They teach it to every school child." She pulled back and rammed the bat into his crotch. He fell with a high, thin scream, smothering the flames on his chest against the pavement. She kicked him over, a little flicker of flame licking the toe of her boot as the gas splattered on it came alight. She rubbed it out on Negan's writhing leg, then shoved him a couple of times with the bat until the rest of the flames were out.

He whimpered, his face so crumpled it was nearly unrecognizable. "Pl-pl—" he stuttered. Carol raised the bat and smashed it down on his arm, the crunch of his shattering elbow making her stomach twitch and bubble acidly. Fortunately, she hadn't been stupid enough to eat before this. He coughed out a horrible groan of pain and she almost wanted to do the same because this wasn't feeling so great on her freshly-healed bullet wounds.

She switched position and broke his other arm before he could reach for the fire-heated knife still on his belt. Or start to beg. She couldn't take begging, not even from him. It made the inside of her head go squirmy and dark and horrible.

"Rosita!" she called.

Grass rustled and the other woman strolled out of the woods, slinging another rifle across her back that she'd borrowed from the Kingdom's tiny stash. "Remember me, asshole?" Rosita smiled sharply, and then her boot came down on his face. Gently, holding him in place with his cheek smooshed against the dirty sole of her shoe.

Carol laid down the bat, trying to catch her breath. It took some real strength to swing that thing hard enough to break bones. You had to really mean it. She blocked thoughts of Glenn out of her head. She couldn't think of him. Not his sweet, dark eyes that had always seen the exact truth of the terrible things they'd had to do. Who never hesitated to do them anyway. Who never stopped being sorry for all those same things.

She set the tip of her trench knife against Negan's forehead. She'd sharpened it last night when they made the plan, so the letter would stand out clearer. But now she hesitated.

They'd never decided. An A for Abraham, for Alexandria. A G for Glenn. A D for Daryl. A C, to keep up appearances…

"Carve an A," Rosita said. "I don't know what it means, but when they brought Daryl to Alexandria, he was wearing this sweatsuit with an A painted on it. It must be some kind of humiliating symbol with the Saviors, if they did it to him."

Carol pressed down hard, the metal scraping bone as Negan sobbed out a moan. Her cheek twitched at the blood streaming down into his eyes, but her hand didn't waver. She didn't particularly care for floral cardigans, either, but you used the props you needed to support your performance.

"Sorry for the theatrics," she said conversationally, needing the lightness of her own voice to steady her. "People do like a story, and this is the one they'll be expecting me to tell." She tipped her head, studying her work, and wiped some of the blood off her blade onto his scorched jacket before she added the crosspiece to the A. "Adultery," she said, sitting back on her heels. "They tell me you have quite a few wives."

Rosita lifted her boot, the tread of it imprinted on his cheek with dirt and a dusting of soot. "Wouldn't that be B for bigamy? We could do up his cheeks, too." She kicked him in the face. His head snapped to the side, blood and spit flying out of his mouth and soaking into Carol's pants.

"What…" he rasped, his voice barely audible. "You want? I can—"

"I'll tell you what I want," Carol said, her anger rising now. It was just like facing down Pete again. A man looking down at her with derision in his eyes. That look that said he thought he could do whatever he wanted just because he'd been born bigger, stronger. Just then, Michonne striding up between the trucks, blood dripping down her sword.

Michonne shook her head, which meant Daryl wasn't here. Wherever he was, he was still suffering. Carol's anger flamed into rage.

"I don't like bullies," she said, and jerked open Negan's jacket, the zipper on it hot enough to nearly sear her palm. "But every bully has a weak point." She tapped her blade on the fly of his pants, where the fabric was shredded from the strike of the barbed wire-wrapped bat. "Rick tried to out-bully you, but his weak point is his family, so that's where you struck." Negan keened a tiny noise, writhing with his broken arms slumped uselessly on the pavement.

She raised her knife and brought it down with the strength of both arms, right into his white, soft belly.

He screamed. Louder and longer than she thought him still capable of, and he thrashed so hard he ripped open his own stomach on her blade.

"That was for Glenn," she said. "And Abraham. And everything you did to Rick, and—"

He was still screaming, squirming against the pain, and she pulled her knife out with bile rising in her throat. It wasn't the same as she'd imagined. This wasn't satisfying her at all because what she wanted wasn't his pain. What she wanted was Daryl safe, to see his eyes lighten in that tiny smile of his. She'd meant to keep Negan alive through everything they had to do, but an evil person in pain was just like any other person in pain. It was horrible, and it changed nothing about the past. Not one damn thing.

She jerked her knife out of his belly and brought it to his throat.

"Shut up," she growled. She had one last thing she wanted to say, and she wanted him to _hear_ her. "You know who gave me this knife? Best present I ever got." Her fingers tightened, secure in each little nook of the handle. "Daryl," she whispered, and watched his terrified eyes change in recognition.

She slit his throat.

She stood up, not needing to see him bleed out to know it happened. From here, it was just one long to-do list and there was only so much daylight left.

Michonne took a tighter grip on her sword. "Rosita. Hold up his arm."

#

"How the hell do you get these things on?" Carol griped from behind the truck, hopping on one bare foot as she yanked at the leather pants clinging to her thighs. "Cooking spray?"

Rosita laughed. "Pure grit and determination. Do they fit okay?"

"They'd fit fine, if they were panty hose." She kept her tone light, distracting them all from the grisly tasks they'd had to complete before the next part of the mission. She sucked in a breath and zipped the borrowed black leather pants, doing a deep knee bend or two to work some flexibility into them. Once they were situated though, they were almost comforting. Supportive, like a good bra.

She snatched up her bloodstained clothes and strode around the front of the truck, practicing her villain walk. She shortened and lengthened her stride once or twice, experimenting.

Rosita whistled. "Hot mama!"

Michonne frowned. "I still say you should have taken his jacket. It's what they do, showing off what they've taken. Like scalps."

"It's too big. Loose clothes make you appear small, helpless." Carol pulled her shoulders back, not looking at the fresh walker sagging on its knees next to Michonne. "How do I look?" Carl had outgrown the black button-down she was wearing, so it was pretty small, and she'd tucked it tight into the back of her pants, making it as fitted as she could without taking the time for a rush tailoring job.

Michonne shrugged off her leather vest, slid it around Carol's shoulders, closed it and then tugged it down to accentuate the other woman's breasts.

"You look like vengeance," Michonne said, her voice smooth and dark. But there was a note of satisfaction in it, so different from the desperation that had made her eyes hollow when she showed up on Carol's doorstep outside the Kingdom.

"How bad is it back home?" Carol had asked.

"Bad as it gets," Michonne had answered.

She'd been right. And wrong.

Now, the taller woman handed Carol a length of chain and Carol forced herself to look at the walker that had been Negan. She draped the length of chain around his neck, leaning forward to keep the high-buckled boots Daryl had given her away from the blood that dripped from Negan's handless arms. Using a bit of string and a snaring knot Daryl had taught her, she tied Lucille to the chain so the bat would swing and bang into Negan's body with every step.

His eyes were vacant now, harmless. His face gaping open where his mouth had been cut away.

"Finally," Rosita said. "I thought the man would never stop talking."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Okay, so that was maybe a little gruesome even for a revenge fic. Sorry for the gore! I needed the therapy. And in the next chapter, we get to see Carol really ride to Daryl's rescue, so stick around._


	2. Ch 2: The Flame

**Chapter 2: The Flame**

Carol got out of the truck in front of Negan's compound, dressed head to toe in skintight black leather. Michonne hopped out and retrieved her prop: a mouth-less, hand-less Negan reeling mindlessly on the end of his chain. Lucille swung flaccidly from where Carol had tied the bat to his neck, rapping against his kneecaps when he walked. Michonne handed his chain to Carol and unsheathed her katana, taking her place to the right. To the left was Rosita, accessorized with a sleek ponytail and an assault rifle, determination ugly-hard in her pretty eyes.

The compound was scarcely defended. Not a single guard posted and a fence full of leashed walkers providing only a minor obstacle—at least it would be for anyone not smart enough to find the gaps in between their grasping hands.

Carol let her eyes fall shut and finally, she let herself feel it.

The desolation of all the killing. The thought of Maggie watching Glenn die while their child was nearly dying inside her. The idea of Daryl, beaten down like a dog until he shed tears that she'd never seen physical pain drag from him.

There wasn't a single thing she wouldn't do to get him back.

Carol opened her eyes and strode toward the compound, letting the ruthless truth in her rewrite the lines of her face until nothing was hidden.

When they walked into the common room, the whole place fell silent as if the voices had been sucked out the front door into the vacuum of space. They looked to Negan first, then to Carol. Some had hit their knees, some were stuck halfway in between. Some still stood, gaping at her.

"Negan talked a lot," she said. "I don't need to talk." She let the chain between her hand and Negan's neck chime softly.

"Out back," Rosita reported in an undertone, coming in behind her. "Big shed, no windows."

Carol zeroed in on the muscle. The guys wearing holsters and rifles, who had the biggest plates of food and bags slung around their shoulders to carry everything they could steal.

"If you want to keep living like kings," she said. "Meet me out back in the big shed. Leave your weapons outside. They're mine now and I want to look them over before I redistribute them." She scanned the rest of the room, at the people serving the food. "If anybody's itching for a promotion, now's the time."

A hand flashed into movement, diving for a gun. Carol ripped her pistol out of its holster and fired. She didn't have a chance to aim, so she hit him in the hip instead of the head, but Rosita's bullet drilled him in the ribs before he fell and it was enough. Better, actually. Rosita stepped forward to finish him and Carol lifted her pistol-wielding hand to call her off, letting the man's groans of agony fill the room.

"Anyone else?" she asked.

Rosita supervised the mercenaries filing out toward the shed while Carol, Negan, and Michonne cleared the rest of the big building from the top down. They sent the goons to the shed out back and left the worker bees terrified and shock-faced where she found them. They only had to kill two. From the sound of shots, Rosita only had to deal with one.

Carol struggled not to grind her teeth, because this was all taking too long. Daryl was somewhere in this building, in a cell or some kind of torture chamber and she just had to _leave him there_ until she could deal with all these assholes.

A motorcycle engine roared from outside and Carol's ears perked. She and Michonne swapped a glance. It sounded like Daryl, but then, she was used to his being the only motorcycle around. Maybe they all had that deep, throaty rumble like a cross between a heartbeat and a tiger's growl.

They ran to a window, Carol jerking walker-Negan's chain so he'd keep up.

It was Daryl's motorcycle, but it wasn't Daryl riding it. An acrid sense of violation scraped though her to see the crossbow on the strange man's back and the winged leather vest flapping from his skinny shoulders. It felt like the first time she saw a friend become a walker. A sight so beloved curdling until there was nothing the same about it except how much it hurt you.

"You know him?" she asked.

"Yeah, I know him," Michonne said darkly. "Name's Dwight. He killed Denise. Brought us to Negan. Shot Daryl."

Carol turned to the outside door, yanking Negan along in her wake. They burst out onto the metal landing above the stairs. Rosita had already barred the door to the warehouse she was guarding and walked to meet Dwight. He was parking the bike, totally unaware that anything had changed.

"Miss me, Dickhead?" Rosita lifted her assault rifle and he held up his hands in half-hearted surrender.

"You really this stupid, lady? You know this is Negan's compound, right?"

Carol and Michonne hurried down the stairs to join them. Negan's reeling footsteps couldn't keep up and he fell. His arm-stumps hit first, then his cheekbone bashed bloodily into the metal risers and he slid down a couple steps atop the barbed-wire-wrapped wood of Lucille. Carol's stomach pitched. It was hard to remember this chunk of meat was the one who'd killed her friends, who'd tormented Daryl past even his inhuman amount of endurance. But then, this body was just the vehicle. The real villain was gone, extinguished on the road.

Carol gave the chain a jerk, squaring her shoulders and smoothing her face back into character. Dwight looked their way and caught sight of Negan as he staggered back to standing. Dwight froze, then something like relief eased the corners of his eyes, despite the melted burn scars on half his face. He swallowed, and then his eyes slowly moved from the ruin of Negan, up the chain, to Carol.

For once, she let everything she was feeling riot across her face.

Dwight fell to his knees, hitting the concrete with a limp thud.

Rosita ripped the pistol off his hip and stuck it into the back of her pants. "Your belt," she said, and he unbuckled it, his pants sagging down over the sharp points of his hips as he tossed it away. The sheaths holding Daryl and Beth's knives skidded across the pavement and came to a stop.

"You'll spare the women, right?" he asked as Carol strode down the last few steps, Michonne at her side and walker-Negan shuffling along behind.

"Like you spared Denise?" Rosita snapped.

"I wasn't aiming for her."

Rosita scoffs. "What? And you think the idea of you trying to kill Daryl instead is going to put me in a merciful mood?"

Dwight looked up at her, slowly, like the weight of his head was almost too much to lift. "I was trying to spare him," he said. "Out on those tracks, when I could shoot him through the head and pretend like it'd been an accident, because of the crossbow's kick. I was trying to save him from all of this. And later, when I was too close to pretend to miss, I shot him in the shoulder because I knew if he wasn't wounded, he'd fight, and it would be a lot worse."

Carol stopped in front of him. Daryl had told her a little about this guy, back in Alexandria. She felt dizzy with the weight of all the decisions she'd taken on in coming here. This man had feelings, a heart. He must have, to care so much about the women who'd been with him. To try and help Daryl later, even though the two men had only known each other for a few intense, complicated hours.

She dropped Negan's chain and he stood vacant-eyed and docile as a dog. It was very close to the words Rosita had used to describe Daryl, the day they'd made a show of him in Alexandria.

Carol held out her hand. "Keys."

Dwight tugged the motorcycle keys out of his pocket.

"Vest."

He took it off, handed it to her. The wings were crusty with dried blood and the skin on her hands crawled to touch it. Some of it might be Daryl's.

"Where's Daryl?"

"Second floor, third room on the left. Key on that same ring. He's okay, I swear. Little bruised, but that's it."

Michonne circled around behind him, drew her sword and looked to Carol.

"We won't kill anyone who didn't hurt innocents," Carol said.

Dwight swallowed and nodded, tears slicking his eyes. But as soon as hope touched them again, he seemed to realize where he was, and that whatever future awaited that woman he kept trying to protect, he wouldn't be there to share it.

"Negan told me to break him," he rushed out. "But I was just trying to get him to take the deal, keep him alive. I could have done so much worse."

Carol didn't blink. "So could I."

Michonne's sword exploded out through his eye socket. His weight sagged, and she jerked the sword back out before his falling body pulled her off balance.

Carol went to the front of the warehouse, where all the weapons and stolen objects had been surrendered by Negan's henchmen before they went to wait inside. She took a close look at them, finally bending when she saw a blocky, plastic object. A camera.

She carried it back and used it to take two pictures of walker-Negan with his jaw missing and dark fluid leaking down his whole singed, battered front. His bat, crusted with only his own blood now. She stuck the Polaroids into her pocket and tossed the camera aside, grabbing a gas can from the back of one of the motorcycles and throwing away the lid.

Fishing in the pockets of the vest, she found Daryl's Zippo lighter and tucked it into her own hip pocket. Rosita shook off the messenger bag she'd been carrying and gave it to Carol, who folded Daryl's vest and motorcycle keys inside.

"Keep a sharp eye out," she warned. "Some of them will have hidden guns."

Michonne sheathed her sword and pulled the assault rifle off her back, then both women followed her and Negan into the warehouse.

The buzz of male voices quieted as soon as she entered. She gave them a hard look, letting them look their fill at their humiliated former boss as she set down her gas can.

"I'm Carol," she said. "Who are you?"

" _Carol_." Every voice in the building expelled the word at the same time, a single exhalation of desperation. Trained so well, every one of them, to bow to the strong and take out all their humiliation on the weak.

She shook her head. "Oh, boys. Can't you hear how ridiculous you sound?"

She kicked over the gas can and flicked on Daryl's lighter, letting it fall into the tide of gasoline. Dropping Negan's chain, she went for her gun.

As soon as the flames jumped to life, the men in front lunged for her. Rosita and Michonne let loose two arcs of bullets and she picked off the stragglers as they backed out the only exit. Rosita slammed it closed and Michonne rammed a 2x4 through the handles of the door. Carol closed the heavy metal bolts on the outside, shaking her head at the sight of them.

"One convenient thing about a villain's compound," Rosita offered. "Locks on the outside of every door."

"Let's just get this over with." Carol sighed.

Michonne's expression was stone, but her eyes betrayed her worry. "You need a minute? Put your face back on?"

Carol took a deep breath and thought of Daryl in a cage. He couldn't stand to be locked in; couldn't sleep in the cells in the prison even with the door open. Even when the sickness had been going through and she begged him to lock himself in at night in case one of them died and turned.

"Rather fight a walker than live in a cage," he'd said.

Carol's expression hardened. "I'm good to go."

As they'd cleared the building, they'd herded all the auxiliary staff they'd found into the cafeteria. They were all waiting there now, chattering nervously. But just like Negan's Gestapo, they quieted at her entrance.

Without looking at anyone, she walked across to the far wall, where pictures of headless corpses were taped up. She swiped them all to the ground, picked a piece of tape off one, and used it to affix her own Polaroid to the wall. They were used to Negan's warnings, so now they could have one of hers instead.

She turned and surveyed the terrified faces. "You can come back with us," she said. "Or you can stay here and build your own community, under your own rule."

"There's more!" One woman blurted out. "Two more satellite camps and one band out on patrol right now. If they come back—"

Carol held up a hand. "We know. Our people are dealing with those." Or Rick and his people would be, as soon as he knew they'd been successful here.

He wouldn't take the risk of the initial assault, but he told her if she managed to pull off a miracle, he'd take care of the cleanup.

She turned out to face the rest of the room. "If you hurt my people, or if you try to enslave other communities, I _will_ be back."

She stared them down. Every face. Gauging their posture, their eyes. The people who had been bullied frequently became the biggest bullies themselves. But for now, none of these looked like they'd be jumping to fill Negan's power vacuum. When she was done, she looked to Michonne, who'd been doing exactly the same. The samurai nodded her agreement.

Carol swept out of the room, her strides long because she could barely keep from running.

Finally. Finally finished.

"Ma'am?" A tentative voice asked. "Can we… Can we put down the walkers outside? The ones chained to the fence? They were…um, I mean they used to be our…"

Carol turned, located the slump-shouldered woman who'd been speaking. "You're free," she said. "You do what you know is right."

Instead of heading for the stairs, she went outside and started up Daryl's bike. She'd seen him do it a thousand times but it still took her two tries. She walked it out of its parking space and when she sat down and hit the throttle, she nearly left herself behind in the rush of pure power. With another rev, she made it into action, riding the soothing rumble of it across the yard. Past Dwight's fallen body and the burning warehouse and all the way to the bottom of the stairs. The screams had all gone silent now and she was glad, because she knew she'd be hearing them in her dreams for the rest of her life.

It was a price. She'd known, this time, exactly what it would cost her. For Daryl's life, she paid it.

She put down the kickstand and pulled the motorcycle key off the ring so she could leave the bike running. From the third room in, he should be able to hear it. It might help him feel like himself again.

She fumbled a bit getting the crossbow off its holder, but no way was she leaving it behind. The townspeople were coming out now with knives, headed for the walker fence. She ignored all of them and ran, dignity be damned, all the way up the stairs.

Door 1.

2.

3.

Her hands went numb with only a single door separating her from Daryl. She fumbled with the keys, dropping them and then snatching them up again. Quiet footsteps passed behind her as Michonne guarded one end of the long hallway, Rosita the other. If they'd missed any henchmen, she didn't want them surprising Daryl in the first moment he thought he was safe.

She opened the door, and from the crack, a bar of light stretched across the ground. Past two overlapping puddles of dried vomit. A Polaroid of a headless body—oh God, oh no, _Glenn's_ body—and then bare, dirty feet.

Daryl didn't raise his head but she glimpsed the brilliant blue of his eyes through the tangled strands of his hair. His bangs twitched, betraying the movement of his reaction when he saw her.

She didn't approach, just let him take a long minute to look, the way she'd needed when it had been her taken by the Saviors and him riding to the rescue. "I'm real," she said gently. "I'm here. And no one is going to hurt you anymore."

He didn't move. The strong, muscular lines of his body were hidden by a dingy sweatsuit, his hands clenched over his upraised knees. His fingers shook, though from the chill of the cell or just from everything, she couldn't tell.

She knelt and flipped the Polaroid of Glenn face down. Daryl's hand twitched like he wanted to stop her.

"I got Glenn killed."

The low rasp of his voice surprised her, like it had been years not weeks since she last heard it.

"No, you tried to save him," she corrected. "You tried to make Negan choose you instead. It just didn't work."

She'd heard the whole story from Michonne, bracing herself through the whole retelling because she'd known he'd never stay on his knees and just watch. Not through all that. No matter what the consequences.

"The man who _chose_ to kill Glenn and Abraham is burning in hell for it right now." She laid her own Polaroid atop the one of Glenn.

Daryl looked up, just a little. Even through his hair she could see him blink, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. "You do that?"

She fought the tug of shame at him knowing the depth of what she was capable of. "It was the safest way. I gave them the show they expected, and nobody fired a single shot at us."

It was true. Only a few had tried and their fingers never made it all the way to the trigger.

She sat back on her heels, avoiding his eyes now. "I brought you some clothes. I'll let you change." She laid out dark workpants, one of his button downs with the sleeves torn off, a spare red shop rag Aaron had produced from his garage. Daryl's spare pair of boots. She shrugged the crossbow off her back and laid it by the clothes. "Take as long as you need. There's nobody left out here who will try to hurt us."

She stood up and caught the doorknob, starting to swing it closed so he'd have privacy.

"Hey."

She stopped, looking at him in spite of the anxiety in her chest that told her she might not like what she saw in his face now that he knew what she'd done.

"Don't close the door."

She nodded and turned her back, one hand on the butt of her pistol as she stood square in the doorway. Michonne and Rosita both glanced at her from their ends of the hallway and she gave them a small nod to let them know he was all right. Or, not all right but breathing, not bleeding.

She fought the urge to swing around and drag him into her arms, clinging until the wild, groundless feeling in her chest went away. She wanted to go home, so badly, but there was no place on this earth that felt like a home to her anymore. And this wasn't about her. They'd go wherever Daryl felt safest, and she'd give him his space, not forcing any touch that might comfort her but not him. She knew all too well how hard it was, in the aftermath of humiliation, to feel like your body was your own again. That you had any control over what happened to it at all.

The rustle of fabric behind her wasn't loud, but she heard it acutely. She wanted to burn that prison suit along with Negan. The yellow A on it matching the one she'd carved into his forehead.

How long would it take Daryl to come back from this? Who would he be now, after everything Negan had forced upon him?

Daryl made a sound. One of his low murmuring rumbles that she immediately knew meant he was ready to go. At least that was the same. She turned and he was _there._ Workpants hanging gracefully from his hips, his arms bare and strong without the sleeves he could never abide. The gears of the crossbow silhouetted peacefully over his shoulder. He faced her directly now, his hair shaken back out of his face.

Tears hit her eyes without warning and a smile found her face.

Daryl's expression shifted slightly, then his eyes dipped, seeming to notice the tight leather of her outfit for the first time.

"All part of the show," she tried to explain, but he seemed to be having trouble getting his gaze to move past the swell of her hips in Rosita's leather pants. And then he recognized the vest and his skin paled to a sickly gray.

"'Chonne. Is she…"

Carol started to shake her head, and Michonne's smooth voice rang out behind her. "I'm not that easy to kill, country boy."

Carol stepped aside so he could come out, noticing both Polaroids were missing from the floor. A pang tugged at her throat. But she couldn't take that picture from him. No one could, until he was ready.

"Everybody's alive," she said. "Maggie's with the doctor at Hilltop. She's not doing great, but she hasn't lost the baby."

"Maggie's tough," Daryl rumbled, a waver under his voice that she hated. "You didn't lose _nobody_ takin' this place?" He looked at her hard, like he was trying to spot a lie.

"No one on our side."

Michonne came up the hall with determined strides and reached for him. He flinched back but she pulled him into a fierce hug, undeterred. His whole body seemed to be cringing into itself and Michonne held him anyway, her sword still naked at her side and her other arm slung across the top of his shoulders and the tendons flexing with the strength of her grip. Her lips set firmly, but her eyes glittered with emotion.

Slowly, his hand lifted, trembling fingers brushing her shoulder as if he wasn't sure he was allowed.

Rosita looked to Carol with anguished sympathy written in her expression, but they both kept quiet to give the two hunters their moment.

"I told you I'd make it right for Denise and I did," Michonne said, her voice low. "There isn't anything I could do to make right what they did to you. But I tried. If there's anything you want, anything you need, consider it done." She pulled back, not allowing him to dodge her gaze.

At the astonishment in his face, she smiled.

"What? You didn't really think we were going to let him have you, did you?" Her expression slipped back into solemnity. "Rick would have come, but…when you pile the weight of too many lives on yourself, you can't move." Her eyes bored into Daryl's, unflinching. "I expect you'll be smarter than that."

He ducked his head. "That my bike I hear?"

"Yup, that's your ride, Dixon," Rosita said. "Carol got it all warmed up for you." She stepped forward and held her hand up, in an offer. He clasped it hard, the way soldiers sometimes did, but he didn't pull her in for the back-pounding hug Abraham had been so fond of.

"Dwight dead?"

Rosita nodded.

Daryl shook his head, his hair falling over his eyes again. "Ya don't understand why he did what he did."

Rosita's lips tightened. "I don't imagine it matters much to Denise why he did it. Or to Tara."

He didn't argue, just looked to Carol.

"I have your vest," she said, reaching for her bag. "You can have it now, or wait until I can clean it."

He shook his head, letting her know she'd wait, and she relaxed. She wanted the blood out of it, before he wore it again.

"One thing I gotta do, 'fore we go."

She nodded, though she couldn't imagine anything that would keep him in this hellhole one minute longer, now that he was free. He took off down the hall. His posture was taller now that he was in his own clothes, but he still wasn't moving quite like himself. Maybe because of the white bandages peeking out from beneath his shirt, or the ribs he was favoring on the opposite side. But it felt deeper than that. She followed him with her pistol drawn to cover him, because he'd taken his crossbow off his back, but he hadn't loaded a bolt.

He stopped before a door and knocked with one knuckle. " 'S me," he rasped. "Negan's dead."

He waited a second, then opened the door. Carol came in right behind him because his crossbow was pointed at the floor. She had no idea if she could trust his judgment of safety right now, not when his first words spoke of his guilt and he hadn't even tried to leave the cell on his own.

A young woman sat on the bed, her hands limp in her lap. Her skin was unmarked and lovely above a flimsy sundress, her doe-brown eyes just as listless as her posture.

"Is D dead?" she said.

Daryl nodded roughly. "I didn't do it," he said. "I wouldn'ta."

Carol's heart squeezed. How could he find any kindness left in him for these people, even now, after everything? It made her so disgusted with herself for everything she was capable of. And at the same time, not a bit sorry because her cruelty, her ruthlessness had kept this incredible man alive during the bare few times he couldn't do it himself.

Every time he'd been on his knees with a bat swinging for his head.

The girl nodded. "I know you wouldn't have." She swallowed. "Thank you. For what you did. We should have listened to you."

"No," he said. "If ya woulda come back to Alexandria then, ya'd both be dead. But you can come back with us now, if ya want. You don't have to stay here."

"I'm glad you got away," she said, but there was even less life left in her voice than there had been a minute ago. She didn't move from the bed.

He watched her for a second, then backed toward the door. "Offer's open."

He closed her door behind himself, and Carol didn't ask anything. She knew who the girl must be, but it didn't change what Dwight had done to Denise, or to Daryl. She felt terrible, but she still wasn't sorry.

Daryl looked to her. A little sideways, like he had long ago before he'd become confident enough in himself to hold people's eyes squarely.

"You know the way out, right?" she asked, glancing around with a hint of confusion in her voice.

He huffed out the scrap of a breath, just enough to let her know he was wise to the game she was playing, but then he shouldered his crossbow and led her past Rosita and Michonne and out to the bike.

She trailed along, unsure what would happen now. She was here for him. If he asked her to, she'd even come back to Alexandria. Whatever he needed, whatever it cost her. But Daryl rarely asked her for anything. So she'd probably go back to her house outside the Kingdom and…what? She had no idea.

Daryl stepped into the sunlight and paused. His shoulders lifted under a breath, but he wasn't reveling in it—he was scanning the people below who were carrying off the bodies of the walkers. Deeming it safe, he continued down to his bike. He was moving slow, painfully. Not entirely steady on his feet. If he'd been in this bad of shape any other time, she'd have loaded him and the bike into a truck, but she knew this man. Right now, he needed to drive even more than he needed to rest.

He stopped, staring at the bike and looking as lost as she felt. She stepped forward, not touching him but close enough she could feel exactly how hard it was to hold back.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked softly. "You can go anywhere."

"With you." The rumble of it was so low that at first she wasn't sure if it was just her wishful thinking. He glanced at her. "But not Alexandria. Not yet."

"I know a place we can go." She couldn't stop the smile that came to her face, and she thought he softened a little too, behind the shielding mask of his hair. He didn't know about the Kingdom or her little house outside it. He could have privacy there, and time. As much as he needed until he felt comfortable facing everyone.

He clipped his crossbow to his bike, slung a leg over it, and glanced back at her. The way he used to that first winter after the farm, when he wanted her to ride with him but could never bring himself to outright ask.

She spoke to Michonne and Rosita for a second, firming up plans, and then adjusted her various weapons and got on behind him. Carol was careful to hold their bodies apart; not wanting to put pressure on any of his wounds, physical or otherwise.

Daryl stole another look over his shoulder, his hair long and so tangled her fingers twitched to comb it clean again. He reached back and touched her thigh, urging her closer.

"Hang on?" he said hoarsely, and the question in his voice asked so many things.

Carol melted against him, wrapping her arms around him to embrace his whole back, his whole chest. One palm came to rest over the huge thud of his heart and she'd never felt a single thing as beautiful.

He kept his feet on the ground, balancing the bike. His hands covered hers and clenched tight, a desperation in his grip that spoke of everything he'd been keeping silent. Her eyes fell closed and tears slipped out from beneath her lashes.

They clung to each other with the familiar rumble of the bike beneath them, and he didn't make a move to leave for a long, long time.

* * *

 _Author's Note: 2 more chapters, people, so stick around! I'm not ending this until Daryl is very happy and Negan is very sad. Well, I suppose Negan is already very sad. So we mostly just have to work on the first goal, now._


	3. Ch 3: The Ashes

_Author's Note: In my universe, Carol never ate Ezekiel's pomegranate, because she knew that would mean she owed him and she was joining someone else's community._

* * *

 **Chapter 3: The Ashes**

The whole ride back, Carol held on tight, and Daryl actually let her. Sometimes, one of his hands would come off the motorcycle's handlebars and he'd touch her hand, clasped across his belly. Like he wasn't quite sure it was really there.

When her directions led them back to the little house outside The Kingdom with its graveyard garden, he looked confused. He looked more confused after they stashed the bike out back and he saw her things stored inside the already-cleared, already-cleaned house.

She explained how she'd come here in sparse, plain words as she heated up food for him. Quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid, back when they still had such things. It was harder these days, with all the adhesive on the medical tape getting old and gummy so it clung too hard around your wounds.

It felt like a fresh betrayal to tell him how she'd left him, knowing now where he'd been while she was off on her own, trying to remember how to heal.

He didn't say a thing, and when she slid the plate in front of him, he didn't eat. His hands just hung in his lap like his arms had been broken and not yet cast. She gave him space, busied herself heating up water for bathing.

But when the water was hot and his food had gone cold, he still hadn't moved.

"Daryl? Do you want something else?"

A muscle in his cheek twitched, winced. He shook his head.

His tangled hair lay over his face and she itched to brush it away so she could see him. But he hadn't reached for her since they got off the motorcycle. After what he'd been through, everything that happened to him needed to be his choice. She wouldn't go against that, even for his own good.

"Why'n't you go clean up?" His voice was scratchy, like he hadn't used it in a long time.

She leaned her forearms on the table across from him, bent down until her face was at his level, even if she couldn't see his eyes. She didn't say a word, because she knew he'd read the concern in her face clearly enough, and she didn't want to push.

"Need a minute, 's all," he said.

"All right." She reached to squeeze his arm, and stopped herself. His choice, not hers. No matter how much she needed the comfort of feeling him whole and alive. She retrieved the bucket of water and heaved it off the stove.

"Carol."

She almost dropped the bucket, she was so surprised at hearing her name off his lips. He so rarely, rarely used it and it sounded different in his gravelly, low-pitched voice. Like an entirely different name than the one everyone else addressed her by. She immediately wanted him to say it again so she could listen, try to hear the differences. To let them slip in between the bruised places in her, because something in that sound…she _needed_ it.

Carol swallowed back the sharpness of her sudden desire and set down the bucket. "Yes?"

"This is where ya live now?"

His head was up, but he still didn't meet her eyes.

"For a while, yes, I have been."

"Are ya…" He struggled to find a word, and eventually the silence became its own kind of question.

She wanted to reassure him that she was okay, but she didn't want to lie. Didn't even want to toss off their old, "Gotta be," even though it would be so nice to have a familiar joke lifting the air between them.

"I do okay here," she said. Because she did. She went through all the motions of taking care of herself, as if her body were a tool whose use she knew she'd need again someday.

He nodded, as if that were what he'd asked.

She picked up the bucket again, even though she'd filled it full enough to wash his bigger body. It was more weight than she risked when she knew she'd be the only one around to lift it. But she clenched her teeth and ignored the burn of her muscles and old injuries, moving quickly down the hall to the bathroom. She set the water down, and as soon as she did, an image of his crossbow flashed into her head.

He'd propped it against the wall, not by his chair like he usually did.

Was it that he felt safe here, that he knew the danger would be coming from without, not within? Or did it not really feel like his, now that the other man had had the weapon so long?

She hadn't given his vest back for the same reason. It didn't feel right, not yet. Suddenly, she wondered if she should have done it anyway.

The floor creaked in the kitchen. It was so quiet she knew she would have heard the scrape of his fork against his plate. Or at least his chewing, loud as it usually was.

Something was wrong.

Carol tried to shake off the feeling, because what wasn't wrong? She'd just killed dozens of men and it was taking everything in her not to focus on that, to think of Daryl instead. He was important, not them. That's why she'd killed them. They'd made that choice when they'd decided to make slaves of other human beings.

 _That wasn't your decision to make._ Rick's voice haunted her, even now.

Those people could have been forced into it, the way Dwight had been. The way Rick and her entire family had been. Who did Negan hold hostage to control each of those men? Who would search through the ashes of the building she'd burned, looking for their bodies?

Carol blinked. She needed to clean up, not dwell on decisions made, sins already committed. That weight was on her now, wrong or right.

But then, that was the thing about life. You didn't get to know if your choices were right when you made them. You only found out afterward, when the test was already turned in, your answers scrawled in ink.

She used to think you could know, but she'd been much younger then. If there was a hell, she'd long since earned her place there. Right alongside Lizzie, who thought _she_ was killing for the right reasons, too. Alongside Negan and the Governor and Shane, who'd thought the same.

She closed her eyes, her body quaking as tears rose to her eyes.

A creak sounded, only a couple of rooms away.

 _Walkers. In the house._

Her hand jolted toward her knife before she remembered. Daryl was here with her.

The doorknob squeaked from the kitchen.

She dashed across the house, running before a single thought could form in her head, and she burst into the kitchen in such a flurry that his eyes actually connected to hers for a second in surprise.

Beth's knife lay on the table, neatly in its sheath. His crossbow was abandoned by the wall, but he'd hung a water bottle from his belt and he still had a hunting knife, so maybe it hadn't been a suicide mission after all, even though he had one foot over the threshold. His hand hung on the knob of the door he'd been about to close between them.

"At least I left a note," she said.

His gaze dropped. "Can't stay. Not after what I did, what I been. Thought I could, if it were just you, not everybody." His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Worse."

She let her gaze fall, landing on the same patch of floor between them. Carol knew what it did inside your mind, to not be able to control what was done to you. She remembered the shame of knowing someone else had witnessed your humiliation.

"You saw me, too," she said. "When Ed had beaten me down."

Daryl went very, very still.

"You respected me." It was surprisingly hard to say the words out loud. "Even after that, you came to respect me." She swallowed, and focused back on him because that was easier. "What makes you think I can't do the same? You never even gave in, not like I did."

He looked away, toward the forest.

Carol snapped. She crossed the kitchen and yanked him back inside, slammed the door closed. She knew it was wrong to take that choice from him and she was too scared to do anything else.

"No," she said, something quavering rising up in her throat like a scream and she wasn't calm, wasn't resolved, wasn't anything she'd been since leaving Alexandria. "You can't leave. I know you. If you're alone, you'll just…fade away."

His eyes flickered around the kitchen. There were no decorations there, nothing that spoke of her personality. Just tools.

"No," she said. "I'm not any better. I'm…" She drew a shaky breath. "All this time, I've been trying to tell you. I _can't_ anymore. I left because I didn't want whatever was wrong with me to hurt you, too. But now, we're just…"

She looked at him, and her mouth twisted involuntarily, a sob clawing to get out of her. She'd blocked the sounds when they were happening, focused all on him and his cell and his needs. But she could hear the screams from that burning warehouse. Oh could she hear them. From the look on his face, he was hearing something, too, and she had no idea what.

He reached for her, so fast she knew he hadn't thought first about what he was doing. And he stopped just as fast, shaking his head. "Carol..." This time her name was an apology, seared from his battered throat.

"No," she said. She didn't even know where the word came from. From the same place, maybe, that made her get up after she was stabbed, after she was shot. The thing that kept dragging her back to her feet when all she wanted to do was curl into her own grave and pull the earth down on top of her. "No!" She shouted it that time.

Daryl's eyes were so wide she could see the flash of blue even through the shield of his hair. Her voice rattled against the kitchen windows, like the shriek of a crazy person.

She wasn't entirely sane, she knew that. But neither was he, and she wasn't capable of letting him go. Not for his good or her own, and maybe her last shred of sanity had finally fled because it felt good to shout.

The way it felt good to slam that pickaxe deep into Ed's brain. Into the seat of his sickness, of everything that was wrong in him that made him do those things to her. It felt good to ruin him, the way she had thought he'd ruined her.

She'd lived so many lives since then. She hadn't known how to start another one, but now that Daryl was here, too, she had to figure it out.

She took his hand, linked it with hers. "We need to get cleaned up." It was the first, smallest of steps but it was something. She led him past the plate of food he hadn't touched, and thought of pomegranates. She still had no idea how they tasted.

You could move the whole world with a lever big enough. Some philosopher had said that once. And love was the biggest lever there was. Negan had known it. She thought of that woman, alone in her bedroom in Negan's compound. Dwight, dead in the yard.

The people who'd attacked her family had found that out when she lit them on fire. At Terminus. On the killing floor. Again, in Negan's warehouse. She'd been right to be afraid of what she could do, when she loved someone enough. She glanced at Daryl's hollow face. Then again, maybe it hurt just as much when you didn't do all you could, and you failed to save them.

She tugged him into the bathroom and they both sat down, beside the bucket of water and the clean towels she'd brought out for him. At first, she'd intended to leave him the privacy to do this on his own. But she knew he'd just end up the way she had: staring sightlessly at the water while the stain of everything he'd done sank ever deeper into his skin.

He wasn't starving. She could tell that just by looking at his still-healthy face. So whatever disgusting slop Negan had given him, he'd eaten it all up, even while he refused to touch the fresh food she'd served him. Because he thought that's all he deserved.

Carol took a breath. If he wouldn't take care of himself, she'd do it. But she knew how nervous it would make him to take his shirt off, so she took hers off first.

He sucked in a sharp breath when he saw what she was doing, but she kept her hands moving, down the buttons of Michonne's vest and Carl's shirt beneath, then to his buttons.

It felt wrong, undressing in front of him. Undressing him, when he hated so much to have that part of him seen. But they needed to be seen, both of them. They needed to know that someone else could bear the sight.

She left her bra on, in a nod to his modesty, and tried not to stare, even though his bare torso broke her heart. Red scrapes raking across deep purple bruises, layered over the ridges of old scars.

She dipped the cloth into the water, wrung it out, then picked up his hand and started to wash him clean. She kept her touch soft, laying his hand on her knee when she needed to re-dip the cloth to keep it warm.

"Every time Ed did what he did, to me..." She took a breath. "I'd shower afterward, and scrub and scrub. I want to do it right now." His muscles were tense, so she knew he was hearing her, however far away he was in his head. "I did it after I killed those women, those Saviors. You remember? You sat outside the bathroom door for hours."

She brushed his hair aside—no idea how she was going to wash it, with him in the state he was—and ran the cloth over the back of his neck.

"Why is it that we feel dirtied by other people's sins?" she murmured, not sure if she was asking him or herself. "When they hurt _us_."

She sat back on her heels, forgetting what she was doing for a moment.

Daryl turned and his hand closed over hers. Carol smiled sadly, wishing she knew how to help him. But she couldn't even help herself. That's how she'd gotten here in the first place.

He pulled her into his arms, and it was awkward because she was sitting the wrong way and the rag got dropped somewhere between them, leaving a spreading spot of dampness. But somehow he managed to muscle her into his lap, his head resting on her shoulder and his one clean and one dirty arm warming her all the way around.

"Ya came after me." He didn't seem to believe it, even after the words were said.

"It's what we do," she whispered.

"But what do we do…now?" His tortured murmur barely made a sound against her neck.

She didn't know the answer, so she just slid out of his lap and picked up the rag. Dipped it into clear water and smoothed it across his battered body.

It was such a little thing, but seeing his skin emerge from beneath the grime calmed her somewhat. Maybe this is what she should have done the day they dug Denise's grave. Should have drug him back to that too shiny house that didn't belong to either of them and washed him clean no matter how hard he fought her.

Her hands faltered as something clicked into place for her.

They needed a place, her and Daryl. Where they could be quiet or loud, away from everyone else. They needed a place of their _own._ They weren't like everyone else in Alexandria. No one was like them. It was why they'd never relaxed behind those walls. Even after Daryl refused to take a gun, he didn't choose a room there. Just slept wherever he found himself, the way he did on the road.

"I don't know," she said. "But whatever it is, we do it together."

She didn't know if that was the answer. If it would heal them or break them for good. All she knew was it felt right to say it, like with everything that stretched behind them, this was what came next.

And when he took the rag from her and started to clean her hands, she thought he knew it, too.


	4. Ch 4: The Phoenix

**Chapter 4: The Phoenix**

 _Months later…_

Daryl flipped the cigarette over and over in his hands. He didn't smoke anymore, but listening to the pained, laboring breaths in the room behind him…he was giving careful thought to starting back up again.

He leaned his head back against the hallway wall, the floor grinding into his ass after so many hours. He'd paced until even his toughened feet were sore. He wanted to pace some more, but if he stayed here by the door, he could hear Carol's low, encouraging voice. It wasn't him she was soothing, but it worked anyhow. Much as anything could, right now.

Maggie never screamed, but there were low grunts of effort. Hard breaths. A sharp breath or two that made him ache to punch somebody for her.

He tapped the filter of the cigarette against his hand, wondered for the thousandth time why his lighter was the only one of his possessions Carol hadn't been able to reclaim from Negan. Not that it mattered. They'd both quit smoking, four months ago when they'd left the little graveyard house and moved back to Alexandria.

It'd been hard, picking their new place. Carol refused to choose for him, but he wasn't never gonna feel at home in those houses with their sparkly granite and bookshelves. Fuck, Daryl had never owned a _book._ Never even hardly read one that wasn't grubby from dozens of other hands. They always had that plastic library coating on them, like those sheets you put on a bed when you expected somebody was gonna piss on it, sooner or later.

In the end, he'd chosen the smallest one. With shutters to close over the windows and a bedroom window that opened over the porch roof so he could jump out and then onto the shed to get to the ground, if he needed to get out.

Carol had kept all the books that came with the house, but without him ever saying a word, she tore out the granite. Tobin, of all people, helped her replace it with a long, heavy chunk of butcher block they'd scavenged from God knows where. It was dark with oil and people's fingerprints, scarred with the cuts of a thousand different knives and Daryl loved it like he'd never loved any part of a damn building. It didn't fit quite right over the fancy hickory cabinets, came up a few inches short and left a gap on the end by the dishwasher.

He loved that gap, too.

Going back to Alexandria was the hardest thing he'd ever done, in a whole life where nothin' had ever gone easy. But Rick was the only one who looked at him with shame in his eyes. That was right before he'd begged, with tears in his eyes, for Daryl's forgiveness. For not rescuing him before Carol had to.

Daryl had damn near come unglued. He might have shot the man just to stop the pleading if Carol hadn't stepped in and said whatever she'd said to calm Rick back down.

She did that, spoke when he didn't have words. Just like he'd learned to talk when he saw her start to sink down deep in her head. Talk and talk until he yanked her back up, made her say all the crazy shit that was stewing in her. When you said it out loud, sounded a lot stupider than when it was repeating in your head, over and over. Sounded less real. It was too damn easy to forget that, when Carol wasn't around.

He wasn't entirely sure if they were getting better or not. After Negan, they were both so broken, they were like a pair of cripples who could only walk with each other to lean on. Otherwise, they just fell down.

It's why when Carol travelled to Hilltop to help Maggie through her time, Daryl came, too. It was just how things worked now. Even though he'd rather have both his legs pulled off than face the wife of the man he'd gotten killed.

Daryl put the cigarette in his mouth, just to remember the way it felt. The way the blackness of the smoke used to fill up all the empty spaces in him.

In the room behind him, the sounds changed, and then he heard a baby start to cry. Safe. Glenn's baby, alive, in spite of _everything_.

He closed his eyes and when Carol opened the door, he jolted to his feet.

Her hand slipped up to cradle his cheek, her eyes checking him over. "Maybe I should have been out here instead," she murmured. "You okay?"

He dipped a nod, even though his mind felt like it was about to spin straight out of his body.

"Liar." She took the cigarette out of his mouth.

Her eyes had something different in them today. Something peaceful. He hadn't seen that since the prison, though her characteristic quiet poise kept the rest of the Alexandrians from noticing.

He tried to take a breath, forcing the air into the cage of his ribs. It was good. If seeing the baby was good for Carol, they'd stay. Even though their house was in Alexandria. They'd stay as long as she needed to and maybe, somehow, he could keep to the woods often enough that he'd never have to see Glenn's child.

"She's asking for you," Carol said.

" _Me_?"

"You," Carol murmured with a proud smile he didn't understand.

His head twitched back and forth in negation as the muscles in his legs wound tight and ready to run.

"Can't," he grunted, backing toward the door.

"Daryl," she said. "Please. Trust me."

He stared her down, begging her not to ask. But she didn't take it back, even though the little lines at the edges of her eyes deepened, mirroring his pain.

He shoved another breath into his lungs and brushed the front of his vest, trying to make sure it was clean enough to be in the room with a baby. Of course it was. Carol had washed it thoroughly before she gave it back to him. Even found a little piece of fabric that exactly matched his wings and stitched it into the spot that had been cut open so they looked whole again. He'd put it on the day they'd both quit smoking. When they'd returned to Alexandria with his crossbow on the front of his bike and Carol on the back.

He forced himself to walk into Maggie's room, with Carol just behind him. The doctor quietly let himself out.

Maggie tilted her head up with a smile so radiant he had to blink to be sure she was really looking at him. She lifted the baby. "Come on. I want you to be the first to hold him."

Daryl threw a panicked glance at Carol and she narrowed her eyes in challenge. There would clearly be no mercy from her teasing if he ran from a baby. Manfully, he reached for the child.

It was so light he felt like he couldn't get a secure hold on it. Had Lil' Asskicker ever been this small?

"His name is Dixon," Maggie said, beaming up at him with sweat still shining on her brow. "It was going to be Daryl, but no matter how you say it, Daryl's not the kind of name Junior sits on very easy."

Carol laughed. "It's true. As soon as she said it, we knew it was all wrong."

Daryl's gaze flicked between Maggie and the little, red-faced infant. "But… _why_?"

"The night Glenn died—"

"Don't," he interrupted. "We don't havta talk about that now."

"I've been in labor for 17 hours." Maggie's eyes went slitted and mean. "Don't you tell me what I can't do."

Daryl ducked his head. The little boy had gone to sleep already, right there in the crook of his arm.

"We both saw how Negan looked at Abraham, when he didn't flinch," Maggie said. "How he looked at Glenn when he threw himself at them to protect me. Like he knew using me as leverage would only make Glenn fight harder." Maggie shifted to the edge of the bed, waiting until he met her unwavering eyes. "You saw. And I saw. And I looked at you. And you threw yourself at him."

Her face crumbled, her lips trembling even when she pressed them together hard. But even as tears began to gleam in her eyes, she kept going.

"I know what you tried to do for Glenn, for me. And Daryl? I _know_ what it's like to feel like you got somebody killed."

She reached out and touched his elbow where it supported her child.

"That's going to be behind us now," she said, her voice as unmovable as the earth. "Dixon's going to be tough, like his god-daddy. And he's going to be good, like his father. And he's going to be smart, like his god-Carol." She smiled at the woman standing at Daryl's side. "He's going to be the best of us, so we've got to be our best for him. You hearin' me?"

He looked down at Glenn and Maggie's son. "Dixon," he murmured. The name had never hung on anybody good. But the baby didn't know that. If Daryl had his way, he never would. He changed his grip on the child, settling it securely against the leather of his vest. And he nodded.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I hope you guys found that little journey as cathartic as I did! If you liked my Caryl, I've got lots more stories on my page (most of which give them more time for romance than this one did). Thanks so much for the support and all the reviews!_


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